Who started the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Introduction to Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis, in October 1962, was probably the closest the United States and the Soviet Union came to initiating nuclear war. The placing of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, aimed at the United States, could have escalated into a full scale war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union allied with the new revolutionary government of Fidel Castro in Cuba not only because Khrushchev supported revolutions which overthrew "oppressive" capitalist regimes, but also to use Cuba strategically against the United States.

As early as the Vienna summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev in June 1961, Khrushchev defended the Cuban revolution and the legitimacy of the Castro regime. Khrushchev held that no country had the right to be involved in Cuba's internal affairs, but that, if Castro's government was not the right one, another revolution would inevitably depose Castro because the Cuban people would be dissatisfied with his regime. Already at this summit, the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in regard to Cuba can be seen. The discussion of Cuba established Khrushchev’s objectives for Cuba. He reaffirmed Soviet policy supporting nationalist movements by defending Castro’s revolution in Cuba. He also used the summit to warn Kennedy not to intervene in Cuba; basically warning the United States not to invade Cuba. Khrushchev also brought into discussion the US nuclear missiles in Turkey.

The Argument

There has been argument over whose fault it is regarding the starting of Cuban Missile Crisis. Is it Kennedy or is it Khrushchev, or is it even Castro?

Argument against the USSR side: The obvious point is that the USSR secretly went ahead with installing bases in Cuba despite knowing that discovery of this would likely result in a crisis. The USSR had already been seen as a threat to the USA for spreading communism and to cooperate with Cuba, that was widely known to be a communist country, confirmed the USA that the USSR was trying to spread communism to them. This was what caused the tension between the two countries.

Argument for the USSR side: The main defence of Russia was its huge land-mass and hard winters. In addition, they had almost infinite supplies of arms, tanks, planes, and natural resources. As long as they could maintain a reasonable level of technology and superior numerical advantage in nuclear weapons (and other weapons), even if there was a disparity in quality, then it was felt there was a suitable deterrent to prevent "the west" from pre-empting a war.

Argument against the American side: President Kennedy had broken a political rule by refusing to accept the Cuban revolution. A Marxist Cuba or even a Communist Cuba was in itself no real threat to the US. However, due to the obsession the American people suffered with Communism, they did not accept Castro with good grace and had tried to invade Cuba in the Bay of Pigs which failed, but had caused Castro to become paranoid, seeing the need to defend Cuba from US.

Furthermore, the USA had first started building missile sites in Turkey. To first blame the USSR for installing bases in Cuba, the USA had first to reflect upon themselves that the missile sites they had installed in Turkey could have been seen as such a big threat to the USSR then, especially that they were on a Cold War in which no one knew when it might break up into a hot war. Feeling a threat from the USA, the USSR has no choice but to prepare themselves by also installing missile bases in Cuba, which later led to more misunderstandings between the two countries.

Argument for the American side: The USSR had made numerous plans for a full-scale invasion of Europe and America as well as various scenarios for nuclear war. Russia is a communist country. To invade America would mean a spread of communism to the country. It would not be easy to be doing nothing seeing the USSR using all kinds of methods to get into the USA. To protect America from any ideological influence from other countries, America had to take action by also instilling threat in Russia who was dangerously and rapidly spreading communism to America.

Argument for Cuba: Cuba was afraid that the US might invade them. Since he had come to power in 1959, Cuban Premier Fidel Castro was aware of several US attempts to oust him. First, was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-backed Cuban exiles in 1961. Second, was a U.S. military exercise in 1962. The Armed Forces conducted a mock invasion of a Caribbean island to overthrow a fictitious dictator whose name, Ortsac, was Castro spelled backwards. Additionally, the U.S. was drafting a plan to invade Cuba (Operation Mongoose). The mock invasion and invasion plan were devised to keep Castro nervous. Finally, the CIA had also been running covert operations throughout Cuba trying to damage the Castro government. Consequently, Castro was convinced the U.S. was serious about invading Cuba.

Argument against Cuba: It was at Castro’s invitation that for the Soviets to place missiles in Cuba and he even lobbied unsuccessfully for them to remain there and that they be manned by Cuban technicians. Castro desperately wanted the ability to threaten the Yanqui Imperialists and it was at his urging that Krushchev tried to make the Americans back down once they had been discovered.

Khrushchev (left) Kennedy (right) delivering the address on Cuban Missile Crisis

http://www.jfklancer.com/jfk1bop.html

Editorial cartoon satirizing Cuba's close relationship with the Soviets(© Washington Post)http://www.proquestk12.com/bulletins/09APR/HH_DECA.shtml

Conclusion

After so many years of argument over who was really to be blamed for the starting of Cuban Missile Crisis, we still can hardly point our fingers at anyone. We see that all the USSR, America and Cuba had their fault and also their defending sides for this Crisis to start. However, one thing we can confirm is that, the Crisis had started because each of the leaders had wanted to defend themselves from the invasion from another and there was also ideological differences between US and both Cuban and Cuba such that each of them were afraid that their countries would be influenced by the other.